Announcement today from the Vatican Press Office:

On Monday, September 25, at 1:45 a.m., the Holy Father will meet at Castel Gandolfo with Cardinal Paul Poupard, president of the Pontifical Council for Inter-Religious Dialog, and representatives of the Muslim communities in Italy.

The ambassadors of Muslim countries accredited to the Holy See have also been invited to this meeting.

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VATICAN CITY, Sept. 22, 2006 (Reuters) - Pope Benedict has invited the ambassadors of Muslim countries at the Vatican, as well as leaders of Italy's own Muslim community, to a meeting on Monday at his summer palace, a senior Vatican official said on Friday.

The meeting is part of the Vatican's diplomatic efforts to explain to offended Muslims that a speech in Germany last week seen as portraying Islam as violent has been misunderstood.

"We welcome it and are definitely going to participate," said Iran's deputy ambassador to the Holy See, Ahmad Faihma.

"This is a positive signal from the Vatican. I know that this will improve relations with the Islamic world," the Iranian diplomat told Reuters.

The leader of more than a billion Roman Catholics worldwide has expressed regret three times in the past week for the reaction caused by his speech quoting 14th century Byzantine Emperor Manuel II Palaeologus, who spoke of the Prophet Mohammad's "command to spread by the sword the faith he preached."

But he has not given the unequivocal apology demanded by many Muslims. Al Qaeda groups have declared war on the Church, Iraqi protesters have burned the Pope's effigy and some Turkish religious officials petitioned for his arrest.

The German-born Pope said at his Wednesday audience that his real intention had been to "explain that religion and violence do not go together but religion and reason do."

Muslim diplomats accredited at the Holy See were sent an invitation on Friday by the Vatican secretary of state, while the leaders of Italy's Islamic community were invited by the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue.

It was not clear if any Muslim leaders from outside Italy would be invited to the meeting, which takes place at 1000 GMT on Monday.

[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 22/09/2006 13.02]

Dear Teresa,

I would be VERY happy to design and make signatures that support our Papa for any member who would like one. Just send me a private message and we can discuss what sort of design, pics, quotes or sayings.

I SUPPORT POPE BENEDICT XVI

Sandro Magister pulls it all together in a super-post today on www.chiesa which can be a single reference point for anyone who wants to look back with concentration at the past 11 days.

It's a multi-part post containing an analysis by Pietro di Marco and a commentary by Luccetta Scaraffia on Suor Leonella's martyrdom in Somalia (both writers are commentarists for Avvenire)- as well as pertinent excerpts from statements made by the Pope, the Vatican and by Cardinal Ruini on the issue.

First, here is the article he wrote for this week's issue of L'Espresso magazine which came out today in Italy.
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Why Benedict XVI Did not Want
to Fall Silent or Backpedal
If in Regensburg the pope cited the dialogue between
the emperor of Byzantium and his Muslim adversary,
he did so with deliberation. His thesis is that –
then as now – religion must wed itself,
not with violence, but with reason.
by Sandro Magister


The masterful lecture that the pope-theologian delivered at the University of Regensburg really did send shivers throughout the world. Because what Benedict XVI said there is just what happened afterward.

The pope explained the distance between the Christian God, who is love, immolated in Jesus on the cross, but also “Logos,” reason; and the God worshipped by Islam, so transcendent and sublime that he is not bound by anything, not even by that rational assertion according to which there must not be “any coercion in matters of faith.”

The Qur’an says this in the second sura, to which the pope conscientiously made reference, but it then makes other and opposite statements.

And the violent eruption in the Muslim world against the pope and Christians confirms that this other tendency has the upper hand, giving form and substance to the way in which myriads of the faithful of Allah view the world of the infidels.

The other side of pope Joseph Ratzinger’s lecture in Regensburg is the blood poured out in Muslim Mogadishu by sister Leonella Sgorbati, a woman veiled and yet free, a martyr whose last words were addressed to her killers: “I forgive you.”

In reality, almost the entirety of Benedict XVI’s lecture in Regensburg was addressed to the Christian world, to the West and to Europe, which in his view are so sure of their naked reason – too sure – that they have lost the “fear of God.”

But here as well the pope’s words found their confirmation in the facts. Hand in hand with the swell of verbal and physical violence on the part of Muslims, on the other side, in theory his own side, the pope was the target of incessant volleys of friendly fire.

Just as the sagacious companions of Job attributed the blame for his misfortunes to him, so also Benedict XVI was surrounded by a veritable whirlwind of advice and rebuke of the same sort.

It was the same way in the Vatican. Benedict XVI had the good fortune of installing a new secretary of state and a new foreign minister, both of them firmly in his trust, on the very day that the Muslim attack against him began, on Friday, September 15, right after he came back from his trip to Bavaria.

But the grumbling of the curia members hostile toward him did not calm down at all – on the contrary. He got away with the appointment of the new foreign minister, archbishop Dominique Mamberti, from Corsica, who has worked as a nuncio in Sudan, Somalia, and Eritrea, and before that in Algeria, Lebanon, Kuwait, and Saudi Arabia, and thus has direct familiarity with the Arab and Muslim world, and is skilled in the art of diplomacy.

But as for the nomination of cardinal Tarcisio Bertone as the new secretary of state – for this, no, they did not forgive him. The fact that Bertone is not a career diplomat, but a man of doctrine and a pastor of souls, is now being held even more against the pope as proof of his ineptitude on the world political scene.

In Bavaria, with the assignment changes not yet having taken place, Benedict XVI was accompanied by the outgoing secretary of state, cardinal Angelo Sodano, who has spent his entire life in diplomacy.

But the pope was careful to avoid having cardinal Sodano read in advance the lecture he was preparing to deliver in Regensburg. Whole sections of the text would have been censored, if its supreme criterion had been the Realpolitik upon which the Vatican diplomacy of Sodano and his colleagues is nourished.

For Benedict XVI, too, realism in relations between the Church and states is a value. It was so with the totalitarian systems of the twentieth century: with German Nazism as with Soviet Communism.

The controversial silences of Pius XII with Nazism, and later, with Communism, of John XXIII, of Vatican Council II, and of the Ostpolitik of Paul VI, had compelling reasons, and in the first place the defense of the victims of those systems themselves.

But now, it is being demanded of Benedict XVI that he maintain a similar silence in regard to the new adversary of Islam: it is a silence that is often given the name of “dialogue.” ?

Has pope Ratzinger not respected this? Then this is the comeuppance he deserves from “offended” Islam: threats, demonstrations, burning in effigy, governments demanding retractions, the recall of ambassadors, churches burned, a religious sister killed. The pope is seen as bearing his part of the blame in all this.

On the other hand, it’s “post mortem” beatification for his predecessor John Paul II, who prayed humbly in Assisi together Muslim mullahs, and when visiting the Umayyad mosque in Damascus, listened in silence to the invectives his hosts hurled against the perfidious Jews. No fatwa was issued for the demolition of the Vatican walls, or for the slitting of Karol Wojtyla’s throat. It was a mere coincidence that Ali Agca, who shot him, was a Muslim – the assassination had been planned in Christian territory...

Benedict XVI does not deny the proper value of political realism. The secretariat of state has mobilized its network of nunciatures to provide for governments the complete text of the lecture in Regensburg, the official note of explanation released on September 16 by cardinal Bertone, and the explanations presented by the pope in person at the Angelus on Sunday the 17th.

By the end of September, the ambassadors to Muslim-majority countries will be called to the Vatican for another effort to defuse the tensions. And the pontifical council for culture, headed by cardinal Paul Poupard, is preparing a meeting with Muslim religious representatives.

But realism isn’t everything for Benedict XVI. The dialogue with Islam that he wants to create is not made of fearful silences and ceremonial embraces. It is not made of mortifications which, in the Muslim camp, are interpreted as acts of submission.

The citation he made in Regensburg, from the “Dialogues with a Mohammedan” written at the end of the fourteenth century by the Christian participant in the dialogue, the Byzantine emperor Manuel II Paleologos, was deliberate choice.

A war was on. Constantinople was under siege, and in a half century, in 1453, it would fall under the dominion of the Ottoman Empire. But the learned Christian emperor brought his Persian counterpart to the terrain of truth, reason, law, and violence, to what marks the real difference between the Christian faith and Islam, to the key questions upon which war or peace between the two civilizations depends.

Pope Ratzinger sees modern times, too, as being fraught with war, and with holy war. But he asks Islam to place a limit of its own on “jihad.” He proposes to the Muslims that they separate violence from faith, as prescribed by the Qur’an itself, and that they again connect faith with reason, because “acting against reason is in contradiction with the nature of God.”

In Regensburg, the pope exalted the greatness of the Greek philosophy of Aristotle and Plato. He demonstrated that this is an integral part of biblical and Christian faith in the God who is “Logos.” And he also did this deliberately.

When Paleologos held his dialogue with his Persian counterpart, Islamic culture had just emerged from its happiest period, when Greek philosophy had been grafted onto the trunk of Qur’anic faith.

In asking Islam today to rekindle the light of Aristotelian reason, Benedict XVI is not asking for the impossible. Islam has had its Averroes, the great Arab commentator on Aristotle who was treasured by such a giant of Catholic theology as was Thomas Aquinas.

A return, today, to the synthesis between faith and reason is the only way for Islamic interpretation of the Qur’an to free itself from its fundamentalist paralysis and from obsession with “jihad.” And it is the only ground for authentic dialogue between the Muslim world and the Christianity of the West.

At the Angelus on Sunday, September 17, which was broadcast live even by the Arab television network Al-Jazeera, Benedict XVI expressed his “regret” at how his lecture had been misunderstood.

He said that he did not agree with the passage he cited from Manuel II Paleologos, according to whom in the “new things” brought by Mohammed “you will find only evil and inhuman things, like the order to spread the faith by means of the sword.”

But he did not apologize at all; he didn’t retract a single line. The lecture in Regensburg was not an academic exercise for him. He did not put aside his papal vestments there in order to speak only the sophisticated language of the theologian, to an audience made up only of specialists. The pope and the theologian in him are all of a piece, and for everyone.

Cardinal Camillo Ruini, who has grasped the essence of this pontificate better than other Church leaders have done, said on Monday, September 18 to the directive body of the Italian bishops that “the fundamental coordinates” of the message Benedict XVI is proposing to the Church and the world are found in these three texts:
o the encyclical Deus Caritas Est;
o the address to the Roman curia on December 22, 2005, on the interpretation of Vatican Council II; and, last but not least,
o the “splendid” lecture in Regensburg.

Benedict XVI is hopeful. He would not have been so daring if he did not believe in the real possibility that an interpretation of the Qur’an that marries faith with reason and freedom can be reopened within Islamic thought.

But the voices in the Muslim world that are accepting his offer of dialogue are too weak and too few, and almost not to be found.

And the pope is too much alone in a wayward Europe that really does resemble somewhat the Eurabia described by Oriana Fallaci, a “Christian atheist” whom he has read, met with, and admired.

And then there is the violence that hangs over Christians in Islamic countries, and also outside of them – when, to silence the pope, members of his flock are killed, and all the better if they are innocent, like a religious sister, a woman.

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Magister has written a spirited and reasoned defense of the view that Benedict XVI knew exactly what he was doing in terms of the message he wanted to send, a view I share.

The only problem is that Benedict's enemies may well turn this against him and accuse him of deliberately being an agent provocateur (although he is that in the positive literal sense of the term - he is someone who means to provoke thought).

The liberals and progressives may simply say - "well, he's being the Rottweiler again." It's annoying but we can live with that - we've lived with it all this time.

But they can also use it - in discussing it openly - to aggravate the hordes of unreason, which have not yet completely gotten over their initial rage.

It's a tough call for a front-line analyst like Magister to make.

[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 22/09/2006 18.26]

The Italian site Teresa mentions above has an English language version, if you go to:
With the Pope

At least I hope that works. It's perhaps a little easier to see where you should sign the petition/affirmation. They've already got over 1000 sigs, but almost all are Italian. So go to it, everyone!!!

Pietro de Marco, an academic and frequent commentator-analyst for Avvenire, the newspaper of the Italian bishops conference, interprets the Islam part of the Regensburg lecture in terms of Pope Benedict's overall vision of inter-religious relations.

This is one of the pieces in Sandro Magister's mega-post today on the still-burning issue.
---------------------------------------------------------------

“The Axis of the Sacred“
and interreligious criticism:
Byzantium in Regensburg

by Pietro De Marco

There is a design with an unmistakable outline in the important address by Benedict XVI at the University of Regensburg. It is the pope’s intention not to avoid the critical part of his relationship of dialogue with Islam, or of the perspective that has been improperly described as a Christian-Islamic “axis of the sacred.”

Pope Benedict’s profound strategic vision seems to work toward the integration of the magisterium of John Paul II - with the same characteristics of firm discernment on the topics of truth and reason that Joseph Ratzinger had exercised, as prefect of the congregation for the doctrine of the faith - toward the theological tendencies within the Church.

This was a matter - today seen on another front - of assuming the risk of saying “the convenient and the inconvenient,” of speaking of excess and error when doctrine and conduct pass beyond the extreme limits of what is tolerable.

The room for tolerance implicit in the efforts for dialogue and its conduct, and which is required by the deep logic of dialogue itself, nonetheless has its limits.

Moreover, these limits are the very condition of meaningful encounter: without limits of acceptability imposed upon the protagonists, the rationale of dialogue crumbles, and any result becomes in itself indifferent.

John Paul II’s constant – and productive, contrary to many forecasts – practice of paying attention to Islamic sensibilities, as well as the objective convergence of the Holy See and the Muslim world on the issues of bioethics (beginning with what was called the “clash in Cairo” in 1994) seem to Benedict XVI to be secure achievements.

From now on, he wants to open a new phase in relations with Islam. He is asking Islamic subjectivity for an increase of self-critical understanding.

In other words, the pope wants to integrate whatever there is of reciprocal trust between the Church and the greater Islamic community, which has been laboriously achieved on pragmatic grounds, with the first attempt at a true and proper dialogue, which is something more than coexistence without open conflict.

This attempt at dialogue concerns the premises above all. One of these is the choice of a common terrain of reason. The second, which is almost a corollary, concerns militant faith.

We know that militant faith is not pathological, but is an integral part of the salvation religions. But Islam must – according to pope Benedict – critically renounce the current violent and warmongering version of “jihad.”

So it is that the “Dialogues with a Mohammedan” – contentious discussions between a Christian, the Byzantine emperor Manuel II Paleologos, and a learned Persian, composed by Manuel at the tremendous conjuncture of the end of the fourteenth century, during the years when Constantinople was under siege and help was sought in vain from Europe – seemed to Benedict XVI a perfect example upon which to focus.

For the emperor, reflection upon the essential, which is the encounter of biblical law and Qur’anic law, was not made implausible by the fact that the enemy was looming. The urbane sovereign nonetheless thought of relations with the opposing and conquering religion as an encounter of truths.

At the same time, war-waging Islam was not assuaged, but in the seventh “Dialogue” it was traced back through the argumentation to its founder, Mohammed, in order to ask the Persian participant for a response (which would be extended and important, see “Dialogue” 7:5a-5d).

In short, if the encounter between faiths did not dissimulate the presence of weapons, the armies of the sultan on the Bosphorus did not prevent posing the decisive question on the terrain of rational examination.

Pope Benedict wants, then, to tell his Islamic listener today that Christianity and the West know that Islam is armed and, in part, at war; and that they will be able to respond to this, as has already happened, after and notwithstanding the fall of Constantinople.

But the pope is pointing out in the first place to the faith and the doctrine of men and cultures that the terrain of the encounter of truth and for truth is different. It is that of the “Logos.” But Islam has also practiced the “Logos,” and at the service of faith, for centuries and everywhere, from Andalusia to Baghdad, from Cairo to Persia.

The movements and governments of Muslim countries are certainly expecting tactical advantages from the mobilization of the “masses” during these days, and from the pope’s declarations of regret.

But the Muslim political and religious élites also know that the critical openness of the pope of Rome has nothing to do with the derision of the cartoons. Not just that, it is its contrary.

It is the greatest dialog-oriented appreciation of Islam as a faith – in the possible identification of a sagacious “axis” of the biblical religions – in the greatest critical honesty and methodological rigorism.

At the end of the brief and sterile time spent demonstrating in the streets and public squares, the Muslim world will need to look at its reflection, constructively, in the spiritual and historical gaze of a pope who, for the sake of the truth and loyalty of the encounter, has wished to assume the risks of both the useful misunderstanding of his words, and their hostile comprehension.
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And this is the third analysis in Magister's post today.

The twofold symbolic weight
of the killing of sister Leonella
by Lucetta Scaraffia


The dramatic killing of sister Leonella Sgorbati in Somalia on Sunday, September 16, is, unfortunately, a symbolic action of great significance. This is so for two fundamental reasons. Because, in fact, even in the absence of precise assertions, this is a matter of blackmail. And because the one assassinated was a woman, and a religious woman.

As seen in the history of the Christian persecutions, the time as well the method was chosen to strike others in lieu of the one indicated by so many voices in the Muslim world as the main target, namely Benedict XVI. Amd Not only because the Italian religious sister was an easier victim.

The explanation is found in the memorable pages of the Japanese writer Shusaku Endo, who narrates the persecution of the Christians in Japan in the seventeenth century: Some Jesuits, although they were ready to die to bear witness to their faith, were forced to commit apostasy by having Christian peasants subjected to torture before their eyes.

A Christian can dispose of his own life, even to the point of martyrdom – and the countless Christian martyrs of the past century demonstrate this – but not of the lives of others: the killing and torture of other Christians paralyzes the real target of the aggressive action, it gags him, it prevents him from saying and doing what would be right for himself, until it impedes him from martyrdom.

The Japanese case is the most sensational, but there have been other, similar cases, if one only reads attentively the lives of the missionaries of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.
It’s enough to recall the Combonian missionary sisters who were held prisoner by the Mahdi in the Sudan at the end of the nineteenth century.

In threatening the lives of Christians who live in Islamic countries, the intention is to make the pope retract words that he did not say, and what he did not even think. The intention is to make him lose dignity and authority, forcing him to say what is dictated by a certain type of Islamic extremism.

And this blackmail is much more weighty than diplomatic protests, demonstrations, threats on fundamentalist websites: it is not possible to ask all Christians who live in Islamic countries to accept the possibility of martyrdom in order to permit the pope freedom of thought and speech, the freedom not to be maliciously misunderstood.

It is the most serious thing to have happened yet in the confrontation between the West and Islamic fundamentalism, with the violation of all the rights of respect and reciprocity that the United Nations constantly invokes.

But there is another factor that increases the symbolic weight of this action: the one killed was a woman, a woman who had none of the characteristics of visibly flaunted sexual freedom that the more traditional Islam condemns in the West.

A woman was killed who went with her head covered and dressed modestly, but who had chosen the veil freely, and had chosen just as freely to offer her life to God and in service of others. It is this freedom that was struck, this freedom that is the sign of a culture that attributes to women the same dignity as men have.

The simple presence of women of this type, modest and respectful, but free and responsible for their lives and their choices, brings up a problem: it is what for Benedict XVI is the encounter between cultures.

Before this is a theological dialogue between religions, it is an encounter between two cultural universes that originated from two different religions, which, in this case, reserve very different places for women.

If, in fact, we speak of the freedom and dignity of woman as equal to those of man, we are not placing in doubt an entire religious tradition, but we are proposing a non-negotiable cultural value.

It is precisely on the encounter among cultures and on their founding principles that dialogue must be centered, a dialogue like the one Benedict XVI has proposed, “frank and sincere, with great reciprocal respect.”
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Ms. Scaraffia has put into words what i thought must give the Holy Father the greatest pain and concern - that Christians living in Muslim lands could suffer the brunt of the outrage against him.

[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 22/09/2006 19.15]

Teresa, I made these here banners for anyone who wants
to add them to their signatures. Feel free to use them.

[Modificato da PhoenixRising 22/09/2006 20.41]

THANKS A LOT, ELLEN! I've chosen...
Would you do one that says "We love you, Pope Benedict"?

[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 23/09/2006 12.02]

Thanks a lot, Teresa Benedetta, for keeping us up to date. With all the madness that is going on it's good to read at least some voices of reason.

I would like to refer to Anne Applebaum:

---

Scritto da: TERESA BENEDETTA 20/09/2006 4.31
Anne Applebaum, an Op-Ed columnist in the Washington Post makes the obvious point that most commentators - and leaders, I must add - in the West do not seem to see at all/ Here is an excerpt from her piece today:

...
By this, I don't mean that we all need to rush to defend or to analyze this particular sermon; I leave that to experts on Byzantine theology. But we can all unite in our support for freedom of speech -- surely the pope is allowed to quote from medieval texts -- and of the press.

And we can also unite, loudly, in our condemnation of violent, unprovoked attacks on churches, embassies and elderly nuns. B

By "we" I mean here the White House, the Vatican, the German Greens, the French Foreign Ministry, NATO, Greenpeace, Le Monde and Fox News -- Western institutions of the left, the right and everything in between.

...

---

She is so right with this, I mean this is so obvious, there should be no doubt about that.


And amen to that last article by Sandro Magister:

"The controversial silences of Pius XII with Nazism, and later, with Communism, of John XXIII, of Vatican Council II, and of the Ostpolitik of Paul VI, had compelling reasons, and in the first place the defense of the victims of those systems themselves.

But now, it is being demanded of Benedict XVI that he maintain a similar silence in regard to the new adversary of Islam: it is a silence that is often given the name of “dialogue.” ? "
...

"But realism isn’t everything for Benedict XVI. The dialogue with Islam that he wants to create is not made of fearful silences and ceremonial embraces. It is not made of mortifications which, in the Muslim camp, are interpreted as acts of submission."



All this madness as an answer to a quotation, this is so unbelievable!
It should simply be clear that an open dialogue is neccessary to make progress on the path of reason the pope wanted to open.

Pope's blunt approach to dialogue strains existing interfaith bridges

By John Thavis
Catholic News Service

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Two of Pope Benedict XVI's three foreign trips this year have generated interreligious incidents that quickly overshadowed the main message of the papal visits.

On both occasions, the pope was forced to explain himself and clarify misunderstandings after returning to Rome, in the hope that permanent relations -- first with Jews, then with Muslims -- would not be damaged.

After 17 months in office, Pope Benedict has discovered that the interfaith bridges built through years of patient dialogue under Pope John Paul II are easily strained.

In part, this reflects the reality of the contemporary world: Religious sensitivities are on edge, reactions are hair-trigger, and any perceived offense is amplified by the global media.

But it is also the result of the pope's long-standing penchant for speaking bluntly and provocatively on interreligious issues, to Catholics and to non-Christians.

"It is important that (interreligious) dialogue take place with much patience, much respect and, most of all, in total honesty," he said several years ago. For the pope, part of "total honesty" is the willingness to confront differences head-on.

In 2000, as head of the doctrinal congregation, the future pope underlined important limits on interreligious dialogue in the document "Dominus Iesus," which said other religions were in a "gravely deficient situation" in comparison with Christians.

Introducing the document to the press, then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger said that while the church teaches that good things can exist in other religions "one cannot close one's eyes to the errors and illusions that are also present" in those religions.

That prompted such sharp criticism from non-Christian leaders that Cardinal Ratzinger wrote an article in the Vatican newspaper, saying he was saddened and disappointed that people had misunderstood the true theme of the document. "Dominus Iesus," he said, was an invitation to Christians to strengthen their faith and not a critique of other religions.

Later that same year, Cardinal Ratzinger upset Jewish leaders when he said in an interview that the church was "waiting for the moment when Israel will say yes to Christ." He calmed that storm by writing another Vatican newspaper article, citing the special relationship between the Jewish people and God, and explaining that there must be no pressure on Jews to convert.

After his election, one of Pope Benedict's first acts was to pledge continued dialogue and cooperation with Jews.

But another bump was felt in May, during the pope's trip to Poland. In a speech at the former Nazi death camp at Auschwitz, the pope focused on the question of where was God during the Holocaust.

While Jewish and Christian scholars acknowledged the theological importance of that question, they wondered why the pope had not explored the role of Christians under Nazism or used the occasion to condemn anti-Semitism.

Three days after his trip, in the face of increasing questions, the pope explicitly condemned anti-Semitism and spoke of the Christian duty to prevent such "horrors" as occurred at Auschwitz. A month later, the Vatican issued a book detailing even more completely the pope's views on the Holocaust and anti-Semitism.

Relations with Muslims have had their own ups and downs under Pope Benedict.

A week after his election, the pope told Muslim representatives that he would continue to build "bridges of friendship" with Islam and other faiths.

When the pope went to Cologne, Germany, four months later, he delivered a relatively tough speech asking Muslims, in effect, to keep better watch on Islamic extremist elements and make sure their young are educated in religious tolerance.

That text was revised at the last minute, however, with the insertion of a line acknowledging and thanking many Muslim leaders for publicly rejecting "any connection between your faith and terrorism." The revision ensured that an accusatory tone was not read into the pope's remarks.

Such a careful preview was apparently not made when the pope spoke at the University of Regensburg in Germany Sept. 12, quoting a medieval Byzantine emperor who said the prophet Mohammed had brought "things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith."

The pope later said he was merely citing and not endorsing the criticism of Islam, but he conceded that the speech was open to misinterpretation.

In the past, officials of the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue would read advance texts of papal speeches that touched on Islam, to flag potential hazards.

Earlier this year, the pope transferred the council's president, Archbishop Michael Fitzgerald, making him papal nuncio to Egypt. He had been the Vatican's top expert on Islam. His interim replacement, French Cardinal Paul Poupard, would not say whether he had previewed the Regensburg speech.

The widespread Muslim indignation that followed clearly went beyond anything the pope or his aides were expecting. Twice the pope publicly expressed his regret that his words had offended Muslims, emphasizing that he did not share the assessment of Islam he had quoted.

Then he invited Muslim representatives to a meeting in late September, so he could personally explain himself.

But a lingering question remained in the minds of many Muslims and Christians: Why did the pope quote this tract at all, especially when he himself said it was "marginal" to his main theme?

The answer is that the pope, true to form, was trying to confront uncomfortable questions, challenging the Islamic world on the issue of violence and challenging the Christian West on what he called the "exclusion of the divine" from its own culture.

Both questions involve the relationship between reason and faith, and both were touched upon by the medieval text cited by the pope. In the ensuing controversy, however, the point about the West was all but lost.

The speech ignited the first real communications crisis of Pope Benedict's pontificate. What alarmed some Vatican officials was that even the repair operation undertaken by papal diplomats did not seem to soothe the tensions; that's one reason the pope decided to speak personally with Muslim ambassadors.

All this makes the pope's trip to Turkey in late November a bigger test. It's a place where the pope will have much to say -- on Christian-Muslim relations, on ecumenism, on human rights and on the future of Europe.

In Turkey, the pope is unlikely to drop his characteristic style of dialogue, which goes beyond the proclamation of shared values and involves intellectual and theological prodding. But after Regensburg, he may be choosing his words more carefully.

Can We Talk?
Hosni Mubarak should call Benedict XVI.

BY DANIEL HENNINGER
Friday, September 22, 2006 12:01 a.m. EDT
Wall Street Journal Opinion

Who says the world lacks leaders? After again expressing his "respect" for Islam, Pope Benedict XVI at his weekly Vatican audience two days ago moved one of his knights forward on the global chessboard of Islamic politics.

Amid amped-up security in St. Peter's Square, the pope said: "I trust that after the initial reaction, my words at the University of Regensburg can constitute an impulse and encouragement toward positive, even self-critical dialogue both among religions and between modern reason and Christian faith."

Setting aside the impeccable understatement of "the initial reaction"--churches torched world-wide--it is close to thrilling in a world of persistent confusion about the intentions of contemporary Islam to see the pope step forward, not back, and speak without apology on behalf of "modern reason."

It is being widely said, mainly among his expectable Western critics, that the quotation from Manuel II Paleologus was a "mistake." Really? I'd say Benedict is right about where he hoped to be after Regensburg: The whole world saying that a serious conversation between the pope and Islam is necessary. My guess is Benedict would clear his calendar if the Muslim Arab leadership said it is ready to talk. And the talk won't be about who meant what in the 14th century. It will be about the here and now.

The pope has a Muslim problem all right. It is the hammering that Christian communities have been taking for years and are getting now in Islamic countries all over the world, but especially in the Middle East.

Across the region (with some exceptions), non-Islamic minorities--which by and large means Christian minorities--are being driven out through physical abuse, legal discrimination, murder and the destruction or confiscation of homes, businesses and churches. Call it religious cleansing. It is a political strategy that would eventually give Iran, Iraq, Egypt and the Holy Lands of Palestine a cultural homogeneity that has never existed in human history, before or after Christ.

Chairing a congressional hearing on this subject in July, GOP Rep. Chris Smith of New Jersey described the problem in historic terms that are acutely immediate to Benedict XVI: "There are dozens of Christian groups with rich histories, ranging from the ancient Syriac and Syro-Chaldean churches, which still speak the (Aramaic) language of Jesus Christ, and Coptic churches in Egypt who preserve the language of the pharaohs. . . . There are followers of John the Baptist in Iraq and Iran. The Zoroastrians of Iran go back perhaps 3,000 years. It was under their power and influence that the great king of Persia, Cyrus, ended the Babylonian captivity of the children of Israel." Fundamentalist Islam is pressuring all of these. Many simply leave.

Iran's population has doubled since the revolution of 1979, but its Christian population has fallen to 100,000 from 300,000. The war in Iraq (Mesopotamia was evangelized by St. Thomas) has accelerated the emigration of Chaldo-Assyrian Christians, but non-Muslims were leaving even before the U.S. invasion. In 2000, the U.N. estimated that Iraq was Europe's second source of refugees, after Yugoslavia.

The oppression of Egypt's Coptic Christians, who are 10% of the population, is brutal. During Easter Week this April, knife-wielding Muslims in Alexandria attacked worshipers at several Coptic churches. Afterward, Copts shouted: "Hosni Mubarak, where are you?" Good question. Typically, local Egyptian officials prevent the Copts from rebuilding their churches. In August, a Coptic woman named Hala Helmy Botros started a blog to draw attention to such incidents. She was shut down and her father beaten: "This is a present from your daughter." In the holy land, the Christian populations of Bethlehem, Nazareth and Jerusalem have emigrated under duress in past decades. The U.S. State Department says the Palestinian government has colluded to extort property there from Christian landowners.

The exodus (and falling birthrates) of Christians in the Middle East is a well-documented, much-analyzed phenomenon extending back into the last century. After Vatican II, Pope Paul VI created the Secretariat for the Non-Christian Religions to address these matters. In a dramatic attempt to heighten awareness, Pope John Paul II made a historic pilgrimage to Syria in 2001 and held some 60 meetings with Muslims. Observably little sustainable progress has resulted. If anything, Islamic fundamentalists have ramped up their anti-minority aggression and spread it--to Sudan, Somalia, Nigeria, Indonesia and Pakistan (where members of the Ahmadi Muslim minority have been gunned down as apostates).

And so Pope Benedict has decided it is time to act, no matter that it may hurt the sensibilities of Islamic believers or Western elites ever alert to the delicacies of language. In this Benedict deserves the world's political support. The Middle East is being purged of a historically enriching diversity that will surely kill its ability to thrive. What will remain is a homogenous, self-proclaimed threat to the rest of the world. As Nina Shea of the Center for Religious Freedom argues, the pathologies and methods directed against unprotected minorities will be used next against other Muslims and governments. It is no exaggeration to suggest that the maltreatment of these local Christians is rightly seen as a proxy for the world.

The world's standard political institutions have proved unable to address this problem. The U.N. is compromised and hapless. The U.S. is distrusted, Europe is supine, China is cynical. There would be no better venue for seeking a way out than the Vatican.

The Vatican doesn't want oil. Hegemony is long gone from its vocabulary. The Vatican's only brief is a modus vivendi, a global reality Islam must eventually acknowledge. The governments of Egypt, Iraq and Saudi Arabia should open the dialogue Benedict XVI is seeking. In March, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak met with Benedict at the Vatican. He would be the obvious choice to take the lead. More than these Arab governments realize, their future could use the support of the pope's famous divisions.

Mr. Henninger is deputy editor of The Wall Street Journal's editorial page. His column appears Fridays in the Journal and on OpinionJournal.com.

[Modificato da benefan 22/09/2006 23.21]

Is mainstream media calming down somewhat after ten days of Pope-bashing? One would think so from this round-up, where the only 'negative' thing is the Pakistani President's remarks at the United Nations. (But understand that to keep his job, he has to placate his country's radical Islamic leaders who keep 180 million Muslims under their sway through their control of schools and mosques.)
---------------------------------------------------------------

Pope calls Muslim summit
to allay anger
By Jenny Booth and agencies


Pope Benedict XVI has invited the ambassadors of Muslim countries at the Vatican to a meeting at his summer palace of Castel Gandolfo on Monday, a senior Vatican official confirmed today.

Muslim religious leaders are also expected to take part in the audience, as is a Muslim council that advised the Italian government on integration issues, according to Ansa, the Italian news agency.

The Vatican has sought such a meeting as part of diplomatic efforts to explain to offended Muslims that a speech made by the Pope in Germany about Islam's relationship with violence has been misunderstood.

The Holy See has dispatched its own ambassadors to explain the Pope’s speech in depth, while Benedict has followed up his own unprecedented statement of regret last Sunday by telling thousands of pilgrims at the Vatican on Wednesday that worldwide Muslim anger was the result of an "unfortunate misunderstanding".

Benedict also expressed his respect for followers of all religions, "particularly Muslims", during a weekly general audience in St Peter’s Square. He reiterated that parts of the speech which offended Muslims — in which he quoted the words of a 14th Century Byzantine emperor who described Islam as "evil and inhuman" — did not reflect his personal opinion, and hoped it could yet lead to dialogue between religions.

Next Monday's meeting indicates that the Holy See believes that its diplomatic charm offensive is working, and anger is beginning to subside. Initial reactions to the meeting were encouraging.

"We welcome it and are definitely going to participate," Ahmad Faihma, Iran’s deputy ambassador to the Holy See, told Reuters. "This is a positive signal from the Vatican. I know that this will improve relations with the Islamic world."

Iran had previously condemned the speech, which the Islamic Republic's supreme leader described as part of a global conspiracy against Muslims led by President Bush.

In another positive sign, Morocco’s ambassador to the Holy See resumed his functions in Rome yesterday, after Rabat recalled Ambassador Ali Achour on Saturday for consultations at the height of the furore over Benedict’s remarks.

The leader of the world’s 1.1 billion Roman Catholics has come under pressure to make an unequivocal apology over his comments linking Islam with violence, which triggered street protests, death threats, and attacks on Catholic churches in the Muslim world.

Earlier this week, General Pervez Musharraf, the Pakistani President, called for a ban on the "defamation of Islam" in a speech to the UN General Assembly in New York.

"We also need to bridge, through dialogue and understanding, the growing divide between the Islamic and Western worlds," General Pervez Musharraf told the 192-member assembly. "It is imperative to end racial and religious discrimination against Muslims and to prohibit the defamation of Islam".

[Great! But why favor Islam alone? How about a ban on civil and religious discrimination against Christians in Muslim lands and relentless blasphemies against the Christian religion and its symbols including the Pope? Think reciprocity, Mr. President, and mutual respect.]

Referring indirectly to the Pope, he said: "It is most disappointing to see personalities of high standing oblivious of Muslim sensitivities at these critical moments".

[And Christians have no sensitivities? Perhaps Musharraf has reason to assume that. Think how very few, even within the Catholic Church itself, have stood up to be counted and heard on the side of the Pope!]

Yesterday the Archbishop of Westminster entered the row when he questioned whether Turkey should be admitted to the European Union. Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor, spiritual leader of the four million Catholics in England and Wales, echoed concerns shared by the Pope when he argued that the predominantly Muslim state was not culturally part of Europe.

Speaking on the BBC Radio 4 programme Today, he questioned the position of Tony Blair, who has argued that Turkey should be allowed to join on the ground that to exclude it would be damaging. The Cardinal said: "There may be another view that the mixture of cultures is not a good idea."

He added: "I think the question is for Europe. Will the admission of Turkey to the European Union be something that benefits a proper dialogue or integration of a very large, predominantly Islamic, country in a continent that, fundamentally, is Christian?"

[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 23/09/2006 2.24]

By FRANCES D'EMILIO
Associated Press Writer
Fri Sep 22


VATICAN CITY - Pope Benedict XVI has invited Muslim envoys to meet with him at his summer residence Monday for what the Holy See says is urgently needed dialogue following the crisis ignited by his remarks on Islam and violence.

Turkey and Iran immediately said their representatives would attend.

Benedict's attempt to talk through the controversy comes as Christian-Muslim tensions rose in Indonesia over the executions of three Roman Catholic militants. Benedict had appealed to the mostly Muslim nation to spare the men.

Thousands of Muslim worshippers staged marches against Benedict in Jerusalem, the West Bank, Gaza and the Sudanese capital on Friday. The Palestinian protesters waved green Hamas banners and denounced the pontiff as a "coward" and an "agent of the Americans." But much of the Middle East was quiet.

In the West Bank city of Nablus, Palestinian police guarding a Roman Catholic church exchanged fire for 20 minutes with would-be assailants and chased them away, residents said. There were no immediate reports of injuries or damage to the shrine.

The Vatican announced the pope's invitations Friday, saying they were extended to ambassadors to the Holy See from largely Muslim countries for a meeting at the papal palace at Castel Gandolfo, near Rome.

Leaders of the Muslim community in Italy, who have advised the Italian government on politically delicate issues of Muslim integration in the largely Catholic country, also were invited.

Benedict's chief aide on inter-religious dialogue, French Cardinal Paul Poupard, also will participate.

Because of the Muslim holy day Friday, many diplomatic officials could not immediately be reached for comment. Turkey said its ambassador would attend, and Iran said its charge d'affaires would participate.

The invitation "will help clear the field of misunderstandings," Indonesia's ambassador, Bambang Prayitno, told the Apcom news agency.

Vatican Radio described the meeting as an "appointment totally dedicated to the urgency for dialogue today, between the cultures and religions of all the world, as Benedict XVI has repeatedly reiterated."

The brief Vatican announcement made no mention of the uproar over Benedict's remarks during a Sept. 12 speech to professors at the University of Regensburg in Germany, where he used to teach theology.

During the speech, which explored the relationship between faith and reason, Benedict cited a Byzantine emperor who characterized some of the teachings of the Prophet Muhammad as "evil and inhuman," particularly "his command to spread by the sword the faith."

The pope told faithful at Castel Gandolfo on Sunday that he was "deeply sorry" that Muslims were offended by the words, which he said did not reflect his own opinions. Later in the week, he told pilgrims his comments were open to misinterpretation and that he had "deep respect" for Islam.

Monday's meeting with the pontiff "is an invitation that we sought," said Hamza Roberto Piccardo, who is secretary of the Union of Islamic Communities in Italy, an umbrella group for Italy's Muslims that has a reputation for radicalism.

"From the beginning we have kept a reasonable profile, we have spoken of misunderstanding, of the fact that there was no ill will by the pope toward Muslims," Piccardo told The Associated Press by telephone.

After initial efforts by the papal spokesman and then his secretary of state to make clear Benedict's regret over the interpretation of his remarks, the pope has been speaking directly about the tensions in his public appearances.

Earlier in the week, papal envoys stationed in countries with large Muslim populations met with leaders to try to placate anger.

Mario Scialoja, president of the Muslim World League in Italy, predicted Monday's encounter would help end the controversy. "The reactions have gone beyond reasonable for a phrase that was taken out of context."

While Benedict is determined to repair the damage, he is also intent on working for religious freedom for tiny Catholic communities in Muslim countries, including Saudi Arabia where Christians worship with difficulty.

"The creation of stable channels of communication between the Holy See and countries with Muslim majorities along with greater esteem can work to favor protection for Christian minorities," said Mario Marazziti, a spokesman for Sant'Egidio Community, a Catholic organization in Rome that works for inter-religious dialogue.

In largely Muslim Indonesia, Christians angered by the execution of three Catholic militants went on a rampage Friday, torching government buildings and looting Muslim-owned shops.
[Oh,no! Now, the Church has got to keep this matter under control and denounce the very actions that the Pope has been talking about!] The men were convicted of leading a Christian militia that launched attacks in 2000 that left at least 70 people dead.
--------------------------------------------------------------
AP writer Marta Falconi contributed to this report from Rome.

I know this is only indirectly about the Holy Father, but I am posting it here anyway as a perhaps-typical reaction in the West to any strident threats from Muslim radicals - to lay all the blame on the victim instead. And because what is being described here is all Rome, in effect...
----------------------------------------------------------------

Not the Rome of Old:
Muslim Threats Rattle a City
By Elizabeth Lev

ROME, SEPT. 21, 2006 (Zenit.org).- The Romans are worried.

On the bus, in the cafes and standing in the interminable post office lines, people are weighing the possibility of a Muslim reprisal in the wake of Benedict XVI's citation of a 14th-century dialogue between the Byzantine emperor Manuel II and a Persian theologian.

Though Romans gracefully weathered the 4 million visitors for the funeral of Pope John Paul II in April 2005 and stoically considered the possibility of a terrorist attack before the general elections this past spring, the reactions to Benedict XVI's lecture at the University of Regensburg have sent the Romans running for cover.

The whole affair has a rather surreal aura. How one line -- a medieval citation, no less -- in the midst of an academic lecture can provoke not only death threats but church bombings and even the assassination of a 70-year-old Catholic nun baffles the modern imagination.

In the now well-known text, the emperor stated that if one looks for what "Mohammed brought that was new, there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached."

This line, taken out of context by some reporters, has become a pretext for fundamentalist Muslims to proclaim war against the Pope and the Eternal City.

Like their U.S. counterparts, many Italian newspapers are not doing much to assuage the growing Roman anxiety. One major paper ran the headline, "Distruggeremo Roma," or "We Will Destroy Rome," in big bold letters so that even a casual glance would strike fear into the heart of the passers-by.

Security has indeed been stepped up in Rome, but the fear of being bombed seemed to worry only the natives. Tourists lined up for hours as usual to visit St. Peter's Basilica and the Vatican Museums.

Rome's long history has seen many sacks and invasions, but the city also bears the memory of being an oasis of peace during periods of war and violence. Romans are proud of being a crossroads where leaders from all over the world can engage in dialogue. The idea of the Eternal City as a prime target for terrorism is difficult to accept.

But more worrisome to me than a suicide bomber in St. Peter's Square, is the disposition of many Romans to give into the demands for suppression of discourse. As someone who spends more time at the Vatican than the average Roman, and whose children walk through St. Peter's Square to get to school every day, I am disappointed to see the Romans fold under pressure.

Gone apparently are the Romans of old, who in 390 B.C. waited for the Gaulish invaders, armed only with the pride and dignity of being citizens of this great city. Forgotten are the Romans who rebuilt the city after it was sacked by Normans, Muslims and Lutherans. Now many Romans look to keep their heads down and hope they won't be noticed on the world scene.

If the Pope, in an academic lecture at a university, cannot cite a medieval text without being burned in effigy, and his home threatened, there isn't much hope for dialogue. The violence of the fundamentalists just seems to prove the Byzantine emperor Manuel II right.

But if the Romans take the attitude that every word must be considered so as not to offend the Muslims, how far back will they have to draw the line?

Shockingly, in fact, a great many Romans on the street don't blame al-Qaida or Islamic extremists for their worries; they blame Pope Benedict.

They say, "He shouldn't have provoked them," and complain that the Holy Father's expression of regret wasn't enough since he only apologized for the reaction his lecture caused, not for his words in themselves.

What kind of world are we living in when we cannot engage in civil discourse, even on hotly contested points, without a knee-jerk recourse to violence?

More importantly, how can we blame the Pope as if his words "caused" the violence, or as if there were any proportion between his words and the unconscionable actions that followed?

Are we so afraid for our own skins that we would rather abandon the open discussion of crucial issues than risk irrational violence?

Unfortunately the mood of the people on the street found an echo in the halls of the Italian Senate. The senators shot down a proposed "solidarity vote" of support for Benedict XVI. Meanwhile a few from the far left criticized the Pope for inflaming an "explosive situation."

In the midst of this general abandonment of the Bishop of Rome, several center-right leaders rallied to his side. Pier Ferdinando Casini, president of the Union of Christian Democrats, said, "The West should be ashamed of itself for asking explanations from the Pope for things he didn't say."

Gianfranco Fini, leader of the National Alliance party, commented, "I think that Ratzinger hasn't offended anyone. We can't dilute our identity."

What is desperately needed now is not political correctness but clarity. Respect, yes. Civility, by all means. But clarity.

We ought to embrace Benedict XVI's challenge to renounce religiously motivated violence in any form, and insist on reciprocity in this fundamental condition for a peaceful world.

The great Pope St. Pius V, who called together the Holy Alliance to defeat the Turkish fleet in 1571, implored the entire Catholic world to recite the rosary and beg Our Lady's aid in repelling the imminent Turkish invasion.

With the feast of the Holy Rosary only two weeks away, we should take a leaf out of his book.

----------------------------------------------------------------

Thank you, Ms. Lev. In my country, the Philippines, one of the most venerated images is that of Our Lady of the Rosary as patroness of the Christian victory at Lepanto. The image is housed in the successor church to that first built by the Dominicans when they came to Manila in the late 16th century, that is, contemporaneous with Lepanto. She is the Patroness of the City of Manila as well, and for well over two centuries, it has celebrated her feast in October with a great procession of the image.

But we are forgetful, and as we know, Our Lady had to come back to Fatima to remind the world about the message and power of the Rosary. OREMUS!

[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 23/09/2006 14.22]

Apropos Elizabeth Lev's fine piece above, here is the excerpt from Cardinal Camilllo Ruini's opening address to the permanent council of the Italian bishOps conference which he heads, when they met in Rome on Monday. This was part of SAndro Magister's package from yesterday.

Ruini, who is the Pope's Vicar in Rome, was addressing his fellow bishops, but he might as well have said, with Marc Antony -


FRIENDS, ROMANS, COUNTRYMEN...


It is with deep affection that we greet the Holy Father, who returned just a few days ago from his trip to his native Bavaria, where he proclaimed and bore witness with extraordinary profundity of reflection and with persuasive gentleness to the faith in God in which man, his reason, and his freedom find their highest and authentic fulfillment.

Particularly in the splendid lecture at the University of Regensburg, he was able not only to present, but to provide a reasoned argument for the truth, validity, and relevance of Christianity through a great theological fresco.

This argument was both historical and philosophical at once, and capable of making visible the essential link between human reason and faith in God, who is “Logos,” demonstrating that this link is not confined to the past, but even today opens up wide perspectives for our desire to know and experience a full and free life.

This lecture, together with the encyclical “Deus Caritas Est” and the address with his Christmas greetings delivered to the Roman curia on December 22, offers the fundamental coordinates of the message that the pope continues to present: we must therefore meditate upon it and deeply interiorize it even now [...].

It is a cause of surprise and sadness that some of the statements in the lecture have been misunderstood to the point of being interpreted as an offense against the Islamic religion, and of leading even to intimidating actions and inexcusable threats – even providing, it may be, the pretext for the abhorrent assassination of sister Leonella Sgorbati yesterday in Mogadishu – when what the pope was trying to foster was “a true dialogue of cultures and religions – a dialogue which we need so urgently,” as he said during that same lecture, and as the cardinal secretary of state appropriately clarified in his statement last Saturday, which the Holy Father made his own at yesterday’s Angelus.

As Italian bishops, let us express to the pope our complete affinity and solidarity, and let us intensify our prayer for him, for the Church, for religious freedom, for dialogue, and for friendship among religions and people.

But let us deplore those interpretations, which are not lacking in our own country, which attribute to the Holy Father responsibilities which are absolutely not his, or errors he has not committed, and which tend to inculpate his person and his ministry.

[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 24/09/2006 1.28]

Here is an interesting item on the pope's speech in Regensburg:

Saturday September, 23rd 2006

[Was] Asked to leave out quotation

Benedict XVI knew about possible reactions to his speech and accepted them deliberately.

Pope Benedict XVI, according to a report of the German magazine „Focus“, was warned of the possible effect that the quotations on Islam would have prior to his lecture in Regensburg. The warning concerned especially the very quotation that caused the storm of indignation in the Islamic world.

One of his collaborators had advised him „to cancel the controversial passage“, “Focus” reports with reference to Vatican circles. The pope, however, had insisted on the citation, the German news-magazine wrote in its most recent edition.

Reaction „not of interest”?

Benedict XVI thus had accepted the reactions to his speech: The pope had “never made a secret of the fact that he was interested in the truth and critical dialogue and not so much what is triggered by it”; this is how the position of the Vatican is reflected in this report.

Anyway, observers from the closest circle of the head of the Catholic Church did not believe that the quotations had been inserted into the speech by accident. The pope had deliberately wanted to kick off a debate on relation of religion, reason and violence.

The „misunderstanding“

The pope had quoted a remark by the Byzantine emperor Manuel II Palaiologos according to which the prophet Mohammed had „only brought evil and inhumane things” during a lecture on Tuesday of last week in Regensburg.

In reaction to his remarks a storm of indignation broke out in the Islamic world. Benedict XVI afterwards spoke of an „unfortunate misunderstanding“. In parts of his Regensburg speech he had not given his personal view, the 79 year-old reiterated.

Protests continue

With his speech in front of academics he "had wanted to show that religion and violence do not go together in contrast to religion and reason", the pope said. The protests and riots continue.

© orf.at / Austrian Television

Andrea

[Modificato da @Andrea M.@ 23/09/2006 17.54]

[Modificato da @Andrea M.@ 23/09/2006 17.56]

Can it be, is it possible, that one of the Pope's 'closest collaborators' - and from all accounts, there aren't too many, and each one said to be trusted and loyal - would have been so indiscreet as to disclose private information like the one reported above? At a time when passions in the Muslim world have not really died down and on the eve of the Pope's meeting with Muslim representatives?

It's easy to conjecture it could have happened that way. Whether it did, we do not know. But that's not going to count with the Pope's critics and foes. They will take this unsubstantiated report and consider it the gospel truth.

Not that there was anything wrong or unnecessary or insensitive - as many have been saying - about having used the quote at all, provocative as it sounds.

The Pope was reporting a book excerpt - a conversation between a learned emperor and his equally learned Muslim dialogue partner, a Persian, at a time when the Muslims were laying siege to the emperor's capital.

Such was the emperor's trust, apparently, in the reason and reasonableness of his Persian interlocutor that he did not hesitate to use the blunt language he did - even under his precarious circumstances.

If the Persian had been an unreasonable person, he could have simply killed the emperor in anger, but we know he did not.

We may presume the learned Persian calmly answered the emperor by citing chapter and verse of why the emperor's statement was too sweeping. And by pointing out, perhaps, that Christians themselves had conquered with the sword at times, citing chapter and verse of that too, and how about that, Mr. Emperor God-is-with-us (the meaning of Manuel)?

If I were a very orthodox Muslim (who believes Mohammed should not be profaned in any way) reading that paragraph today, perhaps my first reaction would have been "You Persian traitor to the faith, why didn't you slit his throat then and there? How could you have withstood his presence one second longer after such blasphemy?"

But the Pope was characterizing precisely the nature of a dialog carried on between two sides who respect each other enough so they can be blunt with each other - no hypocrisies, please - and take the heat for their side if need be, confident they could very well reason it out, dispute it, debate it, whatever, but hear each other out civilly - and hopefully, learn from each other. The kind of dialog he wants among the religions.

That, I believe, was the premise for choosing the particular statement Manuel II made.

Now, as for how the Pope reported this dialog, here is an account of what the Pope actually said, as reconstructed by blogger Horace Jeffery Hodges from the audio of the Regensburg lecture, which anyone can get from any number of sites on the Internet. This is his site
gypsyscholarship.blogspot.com/

Hodges is a historian who teaches literature at Korea University, but he did a very simple thing that the mainstream media reporters never thought of doing - at least I haven't seen any of them report it. (Of course, it helps that you know German, but there are any number of polyglot hotshot reporters out there, and not one of them thought of doing this!)

He actually listened to the tape, transcribed the passage of interest, and compared it to the text that had been distributed and posted online by the Vatican.

Here's Hodges:

The Pope's remarks, originally in German, deserve a more accurate translation. The block quote below presents the official English text with alterations in red font [bold letters here, as I haven't figured out how to use colors in a post] to fit the Pope's original German address:

In the seventh conversation (Controversy) edited by Professor Khoury, the emperor touches on the theme of the holy war. The emperor must have known that surah 2, 256 reads: "There is no compulsion in religion".

According to the experts, this is one of the suras of the early period, when Mohammed was still powerless and under threat. But naturally the emperor also knew the instructions, developed later and recorded in the Qur'an, concerning holy war.

Without descending to details, such as the difference in treatment accorded to those who have the 'Book' and the 'infidels', he addresses his interlocutor with an astonishing brusqueness, for us an astounding brusqueness, bluntly on the central question about the relationship between religion and violence in general, saying:

"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached".

The emperor, after having expressed himself so very forcefully, goes on to explain in detail the reasons why spreading the faith through violence is something unreasonable....

Compare my alterations to the crucial portion of the official English translation:

Without descending to details, such as the difference in treatment accorded to those who have the "Book" and the "infidels", he addresses his interlocutor with a startling brusqueness on the central question about the relationship between religion and violence in general, saying:

"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached".

The emperor, after having expressed himself so forcefully, goes on to explain in detail the reasons why spreading the faith through violence is something unreasonable.

Now, first of all, this official English translation itself shows the Pope putting distance between himself and the words of the Byzantine emperor Manuel II Paleologus, and a careful reading will note this, but the German original is even more expressive of distance.

For those interested, the original German words behind my alterations are:

in erstaunlich schroffer, uns überraschend schroffer Form ganz einfach

nachdem er so zugeschlagen hat

In the first of these two, an entire phrase is left out [of the translation provided by the Vatican], "uns überraschend schroffer Form," which I've rendered as "for us an astounding brusqueness." Also missing is the expression "ganz einfach," which I take here to mean "bluntly."

In the second of these two, "nachdem er so zugeschlagen hat," I think that the word "zugeschlagen" carries more force than the translation renders, so I've added the intensifier "very."

With these small changes made for greater precision, the Pope is more clearly shown to be carefully distancing himself from the Byzantine emperor's words.

Unfortunately, the English text that appeared in the media was an official one provided by the Vatican, and someone in the Catholic hierarchy will have to accept responsibility for that text with its imprecise translations. But even given their imprecision, they indicate that the Pope doesn't fully agree with the manner in which the Byzantine emperor expressed himself.
---------------------------------------------------------------

My comments:

The Vatican translation of the phrases in question was not so much imprecise as incomplete - because they were based on the text as originally written. But Benedict often improvises on the written text, and in this case, he obviously decided, when he came to the passage, that he was going to be far more emphatic about how startling the emperor's words were, especially to our ears today.

Anyway, the outcome is that the Vatican revised its English translation to conform with what the Pope actually said, so the phrase in question now reads:

"he addresses his interlocutor with a startling brusqueness, a brusqueness which leaves us astounded, on the central question about the relationship between religion and violence in general, saying:......." - which, however, still leaves out the phrase 'ganz einfach' untranslated.

I agree with Hodges's choice of the word 'bluntly' which better carries the sense of 'ganz einfach' ('quite simply') in this context, but unlike him I would have put 'bluntly' after 'saying' - i.e., "...saying bluntly: Show me what...." - because it reads more fluidly that way, and it puts the adverb right next to the statement it describes.

As an amateur translator myself, Hodges's points are very obvious, and it shows how translation is not just being able to get the words right, but the sense and the tone with which they are said (in addition to trying to make it sound like it was written in English, if that's what you are translating to, adapting English syntax and idioms if you have to).

So Mr. Hodges has really done us all a service. It becomes even more important because someone accused the Vatican of going back to revise the Pope's text after the furor erupted. Virtually accusing the Pope of dishonesty, that is.

One Timothy Noah wrote this on slate.com:

Taking a cue from the Congressional Record, the pope appears to have revised and extended his published remarks since the controversy arose.

The speech, as given (click here for a copy the BBC obtained from the Vatican and posted online Sept. 15) characterized Manuel II's comments about the prophet Mohammed—the comments that have now given worldwide offense, because the pope initially put little distance between Manuel II's views and his own — as being of "startling brusqueness" (or, if you prefer a translation from the original German made available by The Catholic World News, "somewhat brusque").

On the Vatican's Web site, however, someone has now added the boldfaced insert, "a brusqueness which leaves us astounded." If you scroll to the bottom of this Hot Doc, you'll see it described as merely a "provisional" text, to be improved upon and footnoted later — later, in this case, meaning after the pope gave the speech.

[ Teresa's note: Idiot! That note was there from the beginning, because the Pope intends to provide the footnotes that are indispensable for an academic lecture!]

As damage control, the inserted language strikes me as insufficient. It is possible, after all, to be "astounded" by something that one nonetheless wouldn't dispute. Better to substitute "offended" for "astounded."
--------------------------------------------------------------

No, "astounded' is precisely the right word - it is astounding to our ears - so used to the bland pablum of politically correct speech - that someone could be so blunt and in-your-face! (Don't we wish we could all be as blunt, and not have to worry about p.c.?)

So, the point, Mr. Noah, and others like you who thought you had hit on a 'GOTCHA!" to brandish at the Pope, the translation was revised, yes, but only to show what he actually said, not to 'doctor' it after the fact!

[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 27/09/2006 0.24]

Teresa, well done. I have listened to the Pope's Regensburg address live, on Internet, and distinctly remembered how he had used phrases / words that somehow vanished overnight in the first English versions used by the secular press. AND EVEN NOW, I HAVEN'T SEEN ONE SINGLE DISCUSSION of his address that quotes his original words in full.

Here is a summary by Guilio Meotti of the newspaper Il Foglio of where some major media in the West stood on the Pope-Islam issue as of this weekend.

You will have to excuse me that I do not have access to the English sources he quotes (except for the Wall Street Journal opinion piece that was posted here), so I had to translate Meotti's Italian translation from English back to English, which is now two times removed from the original. However, even if I have not approximated the words in the original English, I don't think I got the sense wrong.
----------------------------------------------------------------

Only the New York Times
has not understood the Pope

The major Western media all seemed to have moved 0n (from the Pope-Islam issue), congratulating each other now on having disseminated all the nigtmare stories about Guantanamo, or 'the new Gulag' as Amnesty International calls it.

At week's end, only the New York Times appeared to have kept on against the Pope.

The French Nouvel Observateur published an article by their editorialist Jacques Juilliard who puts the Regensburg lecture in a line that goes from Thomas Aquinas down to John Paul II.

"Why reproach Benedict XVI," he asks, "in this age of blind loyalism and superstition?" He says that "freedom of speech, not its restriction, should be the rule in matters of religion as in everything else."

He continues: "And should the Western democracies have any reason to resent the Pope's speech? The problem is not what the pope said, but his right to speak as he wishes." It is strange, he remarks, that in the "country of Voltaire," one has to "defend the Pope and the Catholic Church against fanaticism."

Julliard waxes ironic on the 'oh-so-peaceable reactions' to the citation of a 15th century emperor who had his doubts about the humanity of jihad:

"We all know that when the Friday preachers [Friday is mosque-going day for Muslims] thunder on about jihad, it is only to incite the faithful to gentleness. And that when the Pakistani mobs chant 'jihad, jihad' in full mystic ecstasy, they only mean it figuratively as an interior struggle against the self."

One can understand them all, he continues, even "the indignation of some particularly pious Palestinian Muslims,"
who, reacting to "the Pope's insupportable insinuation that at times there could have been a link between Islam and violence, responded as they needed to, burning some churches and killing a nun in Somalia."

So why be surprised, he asks, "when everybody knows the Arabs came all the way from their peninsula to Andalusia with an olive branch in their hands."

He concludes: "To me, the Pope's lack of prudence seems evident! He should have asked Jacques Chirac to explain to him the guiding principle of caution."

Rabbi David Rosen, in charge of interfaith relations at the American Jewish Committee, said that the Muslim reaction simply confirmed Papa Ratzinger's message: "It is very sad that the Pope cannot make a historical citation without unleashing a tide of violence." And to a series of calls to convert to Islam, coming from the lowliest mujaheddin as well as from the Islamic leaders with whom the Mayor of London has been flirting.

Columnist Charles Krauthammer is equally clear and direct in the Washington Post: -
"'How dare you say that Islam is a violent religion? I'll kill you for that!' is not exactly the best way to refute the statement. But the point is not to refute but to intimidate.
First ,Salman Rushdie. Then the false story of Newsweek about the Koran profaned in Guantanamo. Then the Danish cartoons. And now a quotation cited in an academic lecture on faith and reason in Germany, in a German university,and by a Pope."

Krauthammer accuses the New York Times of weakening everyone (in the West) by calling on Ratzinger to eake excuses. "What were the Muslim armies doing in Poitiers (France) in 732 and at the gates of Vienna in 1683? Visiting as tourists? A month ago, two American journalists kidnapped in Gaza were released only after their forced conversion to Islam. Where were the protests in the Islamic world?...Where are the demonstrations and parliamentary resolutions when the Grand Mufti All Gum'a incites the readers of Al-Ahram (Egypt's state-controlled newspaper)to rise uo against "the horrendous faces of bloodthirsty people who prepare unleavened bread with human blood'?"

Even The Economist of London has come to the defense of the Pope. Accoding to the the English newsmagazine, which reproaches the so-called moderate Arab states for joining their voices with the fanatics, the Pope has challenged Islam with the double truth that "Christians in Muslim countries do not have the same religious freedom that Muslims enjoy in the West, and that too many Muslim religious leaders sanction and tolerate violence in the name of religion."

Jeff Israely in Time correctly calls for a necessary reform of Islam, as does Newsweek.

The Wall Street Journal asks (Egyptian President) Hosni Mubarak to speak to Benedict XVI: "It has been widely repeated, especially by Western critics, that quoting Manuel II Paleologos was an 'error' Is it?" The question opens up a challenge which the Church under Ratzinger must confront and which the Churhch under Wojtyla did not know how to resolve: the so-called 'religious cleansing' in Muslim countries, the project of dissolving the Christian presence within the ummah (Muslim community), sending thousands of these 'dhimmi' (second-class citizens)into exodus.

"Benedict XVI has decided it is time to move. And he deserves the world's support." Especially of Mubarak who has a serious internal problem with the Muslim Brotherhood [extremist organization which finances terrorism and controls Al-Jazeerah, among others].

Finally, from the Spectator (England): "John Paul II apologized for the wrongs committed during the Crusades. But this was not followed by any Muslim apology for their centuries of jihad. There are signs that Benedict XVI has had enough of this double standard."

"When the Christian population of Bethlehem, oppressed by the armed crescent of Hamas, has been reduced to 12 percen; when Trappist monks have their throats cut in the Algerian slums; missionaires are behaded in Iran, and three Christian girls are hacked to death with axes in Indonesia, he has every right to say 'Enough!'"
--------------------------------------------------------------

On the other hand, some voices are now being raised in support of the Pope, after having kept silent for almost two weeks.


More European leaders
should have spoken up

BERLIN (Reuters) - European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso was quoted as saying on Saturday that more European leaders should have spoken out in support of the Pope after he made his disputed comments on Islam.

"I was disappointed there were not more European leaders who said 'naturally the Pope has the right to express his views'," Barroso was quoted as saying to the Welt am Sonntagnewspaper.

[But did he himself speak up? I don't think so. For more than a week, the only EU leader who spoke up - and did so immediately - was the Italian vice-chairman of the European Parliament.]

"The problem is not the statements of the Pope but the reaction of the extremists," the paper quoted him as saying in a preview of an article to appear on Sunday.

.... [I am omitting the usual background stuff about what the Pope said and how the Muslim world reacted.]

Barroso said the caution on the part of European leaders was probably due to "worries about a possible confrontation" as well as a "certain form of political correctness."

"We have to defend our values," he said. "We should also encourage the moderate leaders in the Muslim world -- and they're the majority -- to distance themselves from this extremism," Barroso was quoted as saying.

As early as 9/19, DIE WELT published this round-up by Boris Kanovsky of some positive reactions in the Muslim world. Here is a translation:
----------------------------------------------------------------

Beirut – Pope Benedict XVI has provoked a discussion over violence and religion with his September 12 lecture in Regensburg and in his subsequent clarifications. It would not have caused such an uproar if this statements had not involved Islam at all.

Followers of extreme manifestations of Islam, who have been for years the only religious zealots who kill, refuse any discussion over the Koranic texts – something which even many moderate Muslims consider impermissible.

Nevertheless it is unquestionably very pertinent to the outrcy of indignation in the Muslim world. And now there are voices being raised, especially in Turkey, calling for such a discussion, or at least, to consider it.

Ismet Berkan, edditor of the newspaper Radikal, wrote Monday: “I am no expert. But I think tha the question of what stand we should take on a reasonable public discussion of how we should interpret the Koran is one of the most important issues of our day.”

Reason! Was that not the concept that Pope Benedict XVI emphasized as a an attribute of God in his lecture? Berkan says he is disappointed that Islamic scholars have so far not answered the Pope as to the content of his lecture. [The controversial statement was merely used by the Pope as a take-off for discussing the inseparableness of faith and reason.]

He points out that the separation of the principle of reason from the educational system came at the apogee of the Ottoman Empire; the result was that “not only the Ottoman Empire but the whole Muslim world lagged behind the West.” It is an unreasoning, literal interpretation of Islam, Berkan says, that provides the culture medium for Islamic violence and terrorism.

Modern Turkey was the only Muslim country that succeeded later in approaching the level of the West, he points out, and concludes: “Turkey was able to achieve that only because it succeeded in making reason and faith compatible. Therefore, the answer (to the Pope’s propositions) on the intellectual level must come from Turkey."

The reactions from Turkey show a European way of thinking but also a deeply divided society. While from one end of the spectrum, Berkan calls for a substantial answer to the Pope’s lecture, the religious newspaper Zaman calls for “the Vatican to be razed to the ground” because “it houses reactionaries.”

Gradually, some thoughtful voices are being heard from the Muslim world. Sayed Ali al-Amin, the Shiite Mufti of Tyre in Lebanon, has called for a “a calm and balanced analysis of the words of Benedict XVI”, far from “impulsive and inreasonable reactions.”

Does this then show a readiness for substantive dialog among religions? Such a dialog could save many lives in these times of religious rivalry.

Not every substantive reaction in the Islamic world has been constructive, however, and Saudi Arabia’s Grand Mufti Abdel Asis al-Schiekh that for most Sunnis, said in effect that violence can be pleasing to God, defending the principle of jihad or holy war as ”the God-given right of Muslims.”

I believe Chancellor Merkel also spoke up immediately in support of the Pope.

Look, Islam has a massive internal problem, which they have made everyone's problem. John Paul II did not help, with his frequent apology tours, for things that had happened centuries previously. Those apologies only fed into Islam's understanding of history, which has no past, only an eternal present. For them, an infraction committed four centuries ago is as present as something that happened today. They have no way to get beyond their past unless they adopt a modern historical approach, at least to some extent.

By the way, much of the media in the US is still reporting that the Pope "apologized" for his comments.

Here is the official Vatican translation of the text delivered by the Holy Father today at Castel Gandolfo, addressing the ambassadors from Muslim couuntries to the Holy See, and representatives of the Muslim community in Italy. The address was delivered in French and tranlstaed into Arabic, Italian and Enlish for immediate distribution.

-------------------------------------------------------------

Dear Cardinal Poupard,
Your Excellencies,
Dear Muslim Friends,

I am pleased to welcome you to this gathering that I wanted to arrange in order to strengthen the bonds of friendship and solidarity between the Holy See and Muslim communities throughout the world.

I thank Cardinal Poupard, President of the Pontifical Council for Inter-Religious Dialogue, for the words that he has just addressed to me, and I thank all of you for responding to my invitation.

The circumstances which have given rise to our gathering are well known. I have already had occasion to dwell upon them in the course of the past week.

In this particular context, I should like to reiterate today all the esteem and the profound respect that I have for Muslim believers, calling to mind the words of the Second Vatican Council which for the Catholic Church are the Magna Carta of Muslim-Christian dialogue:

"The Church looks upon Muslims with respect. They worship the one God living and subsistent, merciful and almighty, Creator of heaven and earth, who has spoken to humanity and to whose decrees, even the hidden ones, they seek to submit themselves whole-heartedly, just as Abraham, to whom the Islamic faith readily relates itself, submitted to God" (Declaration Nostra Aetate, 3).

Placing myself firmly within this perspective, I have had occasion, since the very beginning of my pontificate, to express my wish to continue establishing bridges of friendship with the adherents of all religions, showing particular appreciation for the growth of dialogue between Muslims and Christians (cf. Address to the Delegates of Other Churches and Ecclesial Communities and of Other Religious Traditions, 25 April 2005).

As I underlined at Cologne last year, "Inter-religious and inter-cultural dialogue between Christians and Muslims cannot be reduced to an optional extra. It is, in fact, a vital necessity, on which in large measure our future depends" (Meeting with Representatives of Some Muslim Communities, Cologne, 20 August 2005).

In a world marked by relativism and too often excluding the transcendence and universality of reason, we are in great need of an authentic dialogue between religions and between cultures, capable of assisting us, in a spirit of fruitful co-operation, to overcome all the tensions together.

Continuing, then, the work undertaken by my predecessor, Pope John Paul II, I sincerely pray that the relations of trust which have developed between Christians and Muslims over several years, will not only continue, but will develop further in a spirit of sincere and respectful dialogue, based on ever more authentic reciprocal knowledge which, with joy, recognizes the religious values that we have in common and, with loyalty, respects the differences.

Inter-religious and inter-cultural dialogue is a necessity for building together this world of peace and fraternity ardently desired by all people of good will. In this area, our contemporaries expect from us an eloquent witness to show all people the value of the religious dimension of life.

Likewise, faithful to the teachings of their own religious traditions, Christians and Muslims must learn to work together, as indeed they already do in many common undertakings, in order to guard against all forms of intolerance and to oppose all manifestations of violence. As for us, religious authorities and political leaders, we must guide and encourage them in this direction.

Indeed, "although considerable dissensions and enmities between Christians and Muslims may have arisen in the course of the centuries, the Council urges all parties that, forgetting past things, they train themselves towards sincere mutual understanding and together maintain and promote social justice and moral values as well as peace and freedom for all people" (Declaration, Nostra Aetate, 3).

The lessons of the past must therefore help us to seek paths of reconciliation, in order to live with respect for the identity and freedom of each individual, with a view to fruitful co-operation in the service of all humanity.

As Pope John Paul II said in his memorable speech to young people at Casablanca in Morocco, "Respect and dialogue require reciprocity in all spheres, especially in that which concerns basic freedoms, more particularly religious freedom. They favour peace and agreement between peoples" (no. 5).

Dear friends, I am profoundly convinced that in the current world situation it is imperative that Christians and Muslims engage with one another in order to address the numerous challenges that present themselves to humanity, especially those concerning the defence and promotion of the dignity of the human person and of the rights ensuing from that dignity.

When threats mount up against people and against peace, by recognizing the central character of the human person and by working with perseverance to see that human life is always respected, Christians and Muslims manifest their obedience to the Creator, who wishes all people to live in the dignity that he has bestowed upon them.

Dear friends, I pray with my whole heart that the merciful God will guide our steps along the paths of an ever more authentic mutual understanding.

At this time when for Muslims the spiritual journey of the month of Ramadan is beginning, I address to all of them my cordial good wishes, praying that the Almighty may grant them serene and peaceful lives.

May the God of peace fill you with the abundance of his Blessings, together with the communities that you represent!

[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 05/10/2006 17.56]

The news agencies have been reporting piecemeal on the Pope's meeting today with Muslim ambssadors and representatives of the Muslim community in Italy. As we have the full text of the Pope's speech above, I will merely add details from the other agencies to the basic story here filed by AP and any new material from AP itself.
---------------------------------------------------------------

CASTEL GANDOLFO, Sept. 25, 2006 (AP) - Pope Benedict XVI told Muslim diplomats Monday that "our future" depends on dialogue between Christians and Muslims, an attempt to ease relations strained by his recent remarks about Islam and violence.

The pontiff quoted from his predecessor, John Paul II, who had close relations with the Muslim world, when he described the need for "reciprocity in all fields," including religious freedom.

Benedict spoke in French to a roomful of diplomats from 21 countries and the Arab League in his summer residence in Castel Gandolfo in the Alban Hills near Rome.

After his five-minute speech in a salon in the papal palace, Benedict greeted each envoy individually, clasping their hands warmly and chatting for a few moments with every one.

"The circumstances which have given risen to our gathering are well known," Benedict said, referring to his remarks on Islam in a Sept. 12 speech at Regensburg, Germany. He did not address those remarks at length.

Speaking in Germany, Benedict quoted the words of a Byzantine emperor who characterized some of the teachings of the Prophet Muhammad as "evil and inhuman," particularly "his command to spread by the sword the faith."

Benedict cited John Paul II's statement that "Respect and dialogue require reciprocity in all spheres," particularly religious freedom, a major issue for the Vatican in Saudi Arabia and other countries where non-Muslims cannot worship openly.

Of predominantly Muslim nations that have diplomatic relations with the Vatican, only Sudan did not participate in the meeting.

Among those attending was a diplomat from Indonesia, where Christian-Muslim tensions were further heightened last week by the execution of three Catholic militants. Benedict last month had appealed for the men's lives to be spared.

Turkey also participated. Benedict has said he hopes to go in November to that predominantly Muslim but officially secular country, whose officials were among the first to vigorously protest the Regensburg remarks.

Last week, the Holy See's ambassadors stationed in Muslim countries met with officials to assure them that the pope respects Islam and to urge a complete reading of the speech, which was an exploration of the relationship between faith and reason.

The Vatican and much of the Muslim world share some important goals for each side, including the battle against legalized abortion. Benedict also was among the first to urge Israel to use restraint and turn to dialogue in its battle in Lebanon against Hezbollah guerrillas over the summer.

Among those attending was a diplomat from Indonesia, where Christian-Muslim tensions were further heightened last week by the execution of three Catholic militants. Benedict last month had appealed for the men's lives to be spared.

Turkey also participated. Benedict has said he hopes to go in November to that predominantly Muslim but officially secular country, whose officials were among the first to vigorously protest the Regensburg remarks.

Last week, the Holy See's ambassadors stationed in Muslim countries met with officials to assure them that the pope respects Islam and to urge a complete reading of the speech, which was an exploration of the relationship between faith and reason.

The Vatican and much of the Muslim world share some important goals for each side, including the battle against legalized abortion. Benedict also was among the first to urge Israel to use restraint and turn to dialogue in its battle in Lebanon against Hezbollah guerrillas over the summer.

Iraq's ambassador to the Holy See said Benedict's address to the envoys should put an end to the anger over the Pontiff's remarks on Islam and violence.

"The Holy Father states his profound respect for Islam. That is what we were expecting," said Ambassador Edward Ismail Yelda as he left the half-hour meeting. "It is now time to put what happened behind and build bridges."

Yelda nevertheless defended the anger that had greeted the pope's comments earlier this month.

"Many Muslims around the world were offended," Yelda said. "They expressed their feelings and they were right to do so. They demonstrated anger. Everybody has a right to express his feeling".

From the Reuters story:

Mario Scialoja, an adviser to the Italian section of the World Muslim League who attended the audience, told Reuters afterwards he thought it was a "very good and warm speech."

"He recalled the differences but expressed his willingness to continue in a cordial and fruitful dialogue, said Scialoja, who added that he "had not been expecting another apology."

The atmosphere at the 30-minute meeting, which was broadcast live on Vatican television and radio, appeared cordial. After delivering his speech the Pope greeted each of the envoys personally and chatted with them briefly.

Additional from AP:

Among those attending was a diplomat from Indonesia, where Christian-Muslim tensions were further heightened last week by the execution of three Catholic militants. Benedict last month had appealed for the men's lives to be spared.

Turkey also participated. Benedict has said he hopes to go in November to that predominantly Muslim but officially secular country, whose officials were among the first to vigorously protest the Regensburg remarks.

Last week, the Holy See's ambassadors stationed in Muslim countries met with officials to assure them that the pope respects Islam and to urge a complete reading of the speech, which was an exploration of the relationship between faith and reason.

The Vatican and much of the Muslim world share some important goals for each side, including the battle against legalized abortion. Benedict also was among the first to urge Israel to use restraint and turn to dialogue in its battle in Lebanon against Hezbollah guerrillas over the summer.

From CNA:

According to the Vatican, participants in the meeting included heads of mission from Kuwait, Jordan, Pakistan, Qatar, Ivory Coast, Indonesia, Turkey, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Lebanon, Yemen, Egypt, Iraq, Senegal, Algeria, Morocco, Albania, the Arab League, Syria, Tunisia, Libya, Iran and Azerbaijan.

Also present were 14 members of the Islamic Council of Italy and representatives from the Italian Islamic Cultural Center and the Office of the World Muslim League.

[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 26/09/2006 2.21]

I guess Pope Benedict has to keep mentioning John Paul II. But John Paul's "reciprocity" also involved the 1986 Assisi meeting and kissing the Koran, both very unfortunate incidents. Pope Benedict's notion of reciprocity is far more faithful to Catholicism.

Just when you think that the fire has died down a bit in this Islam issue, guess again. Arab TV appears to be fanning the embers. Discipula in the main forum has posted an Italian news agency report from Qatar, home of Al-Jazeera, translated here:
---------------------------------------------------------------

DOHA (Qatar), Spet. 25, 2006 (agr) - Despite the meeting today between Pope Benedict XVI and Muslim representatives in Castel Gandolfo, Arab TV, while broadcasting the event, is saying the Pope still has not apologized for his words about Islam in Regensburg.

Al-Jazeera broadcast the Papal audience live, but its commentators underscored that "the Pope has avoided making an apology but is calling for a 'true' and 'frank' dialog."

Similarly Al-Arabiya, a distant second to Al-Jazeera's reach in the Muslim world: "The Pope has not presented an apology but expresses his 'respect' for the Islamic religion."

It notes that the Pope "who heads more than a billion CAtholics in all corners of the globe, expressed his regrets for the third time for the reactions to his words, but has not presented the specific apology that many Muslims ask of him for
the lecture he gave at the University of Regensburg in Germany."

---------------------------------------------------------------

[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 25/09/2006 18.29]

Last night, I was going to reply to a comment by Chickadee that the American media keep saying the Pope 'apologized.'

I started to answer her this way -
As for the 'apology' thing, I've given up. I've decided that most people think saying "I'm sorry" is an apology, when the dictionary meaning of apology is to express regret for a wrongdoing.

I think most Anglophone editors know what the precise meaning of apology is but they deliberately use it anyway in order to get at the Pope, to humiliate him (they think!), sort of like thumbing their nose at him to say, "'Well, look who was caught doing wrong, of all people!" So that in the not-too-distant future, when some scholar or historian writes up the event for the books, the preponderance of his research material will show that 'the Pope apologized.'

From there, it's an easy slide into saying routinely in all subsequent news stories "The Pope apologized for his statement in Regensburg..." - in the hope most people won't really notice - when it was very clear what he said sorry for - not for anything he said or did, but for the reaction to his citing a historical quotation.

Well now, it seems, Arab TV is insisting on the strict meaning of the word apology - which they won't get because there is no wrongdoing to apologize for.

Now we will see if the governments of the 21 Muslim states whose envoys met with the Pope today can manage to convey to their people that it's OK, their governments are satisfied with what the Pope has said...Not that these governments have done much before to pacify raging anti-Western and anti-Christian or anti-Jewish passions...

Otherwise, there are voices in support of the Pope who are apprehensive that the Pope may yet be 'pressured' into an apology.

Teresa,

I understand fully that the Pope is not expressing regret for a wrongdoing. That was my point. But the American media is saying precisely that he is apologizing for what he was saying at Regensburg and that is what they are trying to get across to American viewers. That is the popular meaning of apology. People are not rushing to their dictionaries when "apology" comes up. What CNN, ABC, MSNBC, et al., are trying to do is to interject their own multiculturalist values into the discussion, i.e., that the Pope WAS WRONG in what he said at Regensburg. That's why I posted what I did.

I understand why you posted. That is why I was explaining my own attitude - that I used to be bothered about it, but now, if the great majority of English-speaking people think that simply saying "I'm sorry" is an apology - and as you said, they won't be rushing to their dictionaries to look it up - then maybe they do not associate it with wrongdoing!

Besides, anyone who is interested in the issue will have taken sides by now, so those who think the Pope was wrong to have used that quotation will continue to think so, while his supporters know better!

My screed was against the media who should know better, but don't, or as I said, deliberately pretend they don't know, to make the Pope look bad.

The irony of course is now Arab TV is pressing the point and saying, "No, the Pope has not made an apology. We want an apology."

Will the Western media, some of whom have been widely reporting that the Pope has apologized four times already, now say - "Well no, he really did not apologize because he didn't say he was sorry he said what he said, but only for the reactions to it."

Do you see what I mean? In a media age, one is helpless against their power to shape perceptions, in a world where perceptions (or first impressions) usually live on as 'fact.' Whoever gets his message first to the global village has a clear advantage.
A 'letter to the editor' as a reaction to a media outrage just doesn't cut it.

In today's Corriere della Sera, Magdi Allam, its Egyptian-born deputy editor, issues a harsh warning for the Church in its efforts to deal with Muslim anger over a historical quotation cited by the Pope two weeks ago. The article was written for the Monday paper, i.e., before the actual meeting took place .
----------------------------------------------------------------


Islam, Benedict XVI
and a grand risk
By Magdi Allam


One can only be happy about the meeting today between Benedict XVI, the ambassadors of the Msulim states and members of the consultative council of Italian Muslims.

But his associates err, when in an excess of zeal, they seem not to reflect adequately on the consequences of the criteria and the manner in which the meeting was arranged. With the risk of transforming a dialog between religions into a surrender to the demands of Islamic extremists.

One is struck by the full-page ad published in the Sunday issue of Avvenire, the newspaper of the Italian bishops conference, to publicize a live coverage of the meeting at Castel Gandolfo on SAT2000.



It has a picture of the Pope greeting three Iranian Muslim dignitaries, with the heading "The Pope meets representatives of Islam." But why these men, instead of, for instance, King Abdullah of Jordan, who traces direct descendance to Mohammed's Hashemite tribe? Perhaps because a picture of Nuslim religious in tunic and turban may be more effective than a layman in coat and tie?

It is important to remember that Islam does not have religious authorities corresponding to the priest, the bishop, much less the Pope, in the Catholic heirarchy. Because Islam is a religion based on a direct relationship between the believer and Allah.

All the more reason to question - even if only from the media standpoint - why the Avvenire ad used Muslims whose spiritual leader, the Ayatollah Ali Khameini, called the Pope's lecture "the last link" in a "conspiracy against Islam and its sacred values" for the benefit of the "Great Satan" (the USA) and the "Zionists."

The same way one wonders why the ambassadors were chosen to represent Islam in a religious issue framed in a historical and theological context, but certainly outside of politics.

[Oh, I cannot believe he is saying this is outside politics! It is very much political, because the Islamic world has been using religion for political ends. And since Islam is the state religion in the Muslim countries, then why should the ambassadors not be the proper representatives of the Muslim world, especially, as Mr. Allam points out, as there are really no religious 'authorities' in Islam. ]

Isn't there perhaps a contradiction in the fact that the Church and the Western world have been calling on Muslims to separate Church and State* and now, they themselves are dealing with the ambassadors as 'representatives of Islam' to ask their help in resolving a religious question?

(*I know the governments of the West are very fastidious about this point within their own coutries, but to my knowledge, they have never asked the Muslim states to abide by this principle, for the simple reason that Islam embraces every aspect of Muslim life! Even Turkey, which prides itself on being a secular state, has what amounts to a minister for religion. And while Pakistan, Indonesia and Afghanistan have Western-style democracies, we know too well from recent events how Islam is a determining factor in their politics.]

Similarly, how can the status "representatives of Islam" be given to individual Muslims whom Avvenire describes as "representatives of the Muslim community in Italy"? [But they are, at least, as officials of Italian Muslim associations.]

The truth is that the Church and the West have adapted a stereotype of homo islamicus - they consider all persons coming from countries with Muslim majorities as the "Muslim community", they elevate simple Muslim religious functionaries into Islamic religious authorities and make them privileged participants in the dialog.

Read what Nur Dashan, president of the UCOII (union of Islamic communities and organizations in Italy) wrote in a telegram to the Vatican on September 20:

"For the moment, I would like to consider closed the incident between Muslims and Christians, and therefore I request an urgent meeting with Your Holiness to be able to transmit to the people of the Islamic world a message of peacemaking and dialog."

This is a member of the Muslim Brotherhood (extremist organization based in Egypt which funds many terroris activities and is said to control Al-Jazeerah, among others), who after presenting himself as the 'representative of all Muslims in Italy", now presumes to be an ambassador to "people of the Islamic world"!

We are watching - and being victims of - a misrepresentation of fact, both from the dogmatic point of view of thw Muslim religion, as well as from the lay perspective of democratic representation.

Probably the problem of Islamic representation - who represents it - will remain irresolvable until Muslims themselves recognize and respect religious pluralism which was part of the nature of Islam from its very beginning.(?!)

As an Italian, a lay Muslim with Western citizenship, I consider it a defeat that today, for the third time, the Pope feels compelled to explain for the third time that he did not intend to offend Islam, when he exercised his legitimate right to freedom of expression.

But it would be a catastrophe if, in exchange for their 'pardon', the Church legitimizes as partners in dialog and 'representatives of Islam', goverments and organizations who preach and practise terrorism, who openly aim at the destruction of Israel and the extinction of Western civilization.

Let no one have any illusions! These people will only be fully satisfied when the Pope and all Christians convert to Islam.

----------------------------------------------------------------

I fully appreciate Mr. Magdi's concerns - although the SAT2000 people probably planned their ad layout without any political nuances in mind - and they'l1 probably hear from Cardinal Ruini!

But as we have been told that Corriere is one of the newspapers the Pope regularly reads (after all, it is considered Italy's leading newspaper), he will have read this piece - as will his Secretary of State - so Mr. Allam's warnings will not be cast to the winds.

I also think, however, that Mr. Allam should grant that this Pope cannot be so naive as to fall prey to all that he is warning about.

And Mr. Allam would have been glad to note the Pope did not go over ground he had plowed before, simply saying "the circumstances are well known to you".

[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 26/09/2006 1.53]

Pope Benedict has already met with King Abdullah and President Mubarak. I have no doubt that King Abdullah is horrified by the reaction to Pope Benedict's address. I know he deals very harshly with Islamic jihadists in Jordan. Anyway, this meeting was very hastily arranged and the Pope can't meet with every Islamic representative at one meeting. I do wish King Abdullah would meet with the Pope soon and very publicly endorse the Pope's concerns. I think President Mubarak has a bigger problem; the Islamic Brotherhood is very strong in Egypt and he probably has his hands full.

I really cannot thank President Carter enough for helping to overthrow the Shah of Iran and opening the gates of hell by welcoming the Ayatollah Khomeini onto the world stage.

From Lella in the main forum: The Rome-based newspaper La Repubblica has come out online with the reaction story on the meeting the Pope had this morning with Muslim representatives at Castel Gandolfo. I am posting a translation here with the headings and subheadings as, I suppose, they will appear in the newspaper itself:
--------------------------------------------------------------

Among the Muslims, some speak of
'a fresh discourse, a turning-point"
and say they are ready to proceed
with new initiatives

The Pope meets with Muslims:
"An essential step towards dialog"


ROME- Representatives of the Muslim world who met with Pope Benedict today expressed satisfaction at the encounter. The atmosphere, at the end of the meeting, was one of confidence,
with the feeling that an important step had been taken.

The Italian-Iraqi writer Younis Tawfik expressed it this way: "The Pope made a fresh start that was all new and fundamental for dialog and discourse."

For the Muslim League representative in Italy, Mario SCialoja, "The meeting served to resume the course that was briefly interrupted by what happened in Regensburg, which was amplified beyond every reasonable measure by part of the Islamic world."

Suad Sbai, president of teh association of Morccans in Italy, spone of a "good beginning." "It was a positive encounter," he said. The Pope reaffirmed his profound respect for the Muslim faithful and underscored the importance of religious freedom."

Abdellah Redouane, secretary-general of the Islamic Cultural Center in Rome, defined the meeting as "a very important step after Regensburg... Now we should step up initiatives to favor dialog between two great religions, which is so important for the peace of the entire world.

Imam Yahya Pallavicini, member of the Islamic Consultative Council and leader of the Islamic religious community of Milan, said that the feeling among the Pope's guests was one of
"widespread pleasure and satisfaction."

"An important step to strengthen the dialog between two religions, " said Khalid Chaouky and Mohammed Saady, both members for the consultative council for Italian Muslims.

The Vatican initiative was "fundamental because it represents the effort of the Holy See to clarify relations between the Christian and Muslim communities in the world."

The Indonesian ambassador to the Holy See, Bambang Pryitno, said he appreciated the Pope's invitation. "I understand that the Pope had to make clear that the Catholic Church respects Islam and Muslims, and so he emphasized how it was a priority to move ahead and strengthen the dialog between religious and cultures."

This optimism was not shared in Egypt. The supreme Sunni authority in Egypt, Al-Azhar University, and the radical organization Muslim Brotherhood insist on demanding 'clear apologies' for the disputed statement in Regensburg.

"Everything the Pope said today "is just to turn the discussion around in order to placate anger," said Osama Hassan, spokesman for the organization. "We can have a dialog only after apologies have been made to Muslims."

Italian politicians expressed their views, too.

Gianfranco Fini, leader of the AN [excuse me for my ignorance of Italian political parties - the newspapers simply use the initials}, said "the positive reception of the Pope's words proves how the polemics following Regensburg were artificial, opportunistic and in bad faith."

UDC leader Pier Ferdinando Casini, who was president of the lower house of the Italian Parliament in the Berlusconi government, shared that view. He decried the "monstrous and predictable opportunism of Islamic fanatics" but added that "what bothers me is the fear and trembling, the psychological subjugation that European leaders have[ with respect to the Muslim world]."

Minister of Justice Clemente Massella said the Pope gave "an address of spiritual significance, words of dialog which confirm that Christianity is a religion of love."


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The Italian news agency ASCA reports two interviews recorded by Radio Vatican- Iraqi-Italian author Tawfik's account of the event and commenets from Fr. Samir in Beirut. Thanks to Lella in the main forum for her constant updates. Here is a translation:


Vatican City, 25 Sept. (ASCA) - It was an emotional and touching speech because he did not bring up again the polemics of the past few days, but simply made a fresh start, to turn the page, and to move on along the path of dialog and encounter."

Younis Tawki, an Italian writer of Iraqi origin and member of the Islamic Council in Italy, spoke to Radio Vatican today about the audience with the Pope at Castel Gandolfo, in which he took part. He said the Pope gained new ground with the participants.

"The Pope reaffirmed his respect for Islam and for Muslims, and he gave us a great lesson in tolerance. Especially afterwards, he came to greet us one by one, and spoke long enough with each of us to ask about us individually and to thank us for having answered his invitation."

"The Pope's brief speech," Tawfix said, "was for me a masterful lesson [ he uses the words lezione magistrale - a literal Italian translation of lectio magistralis,the Latin term for an academic lecture ] to make us understand the importance of dialog and encounter especially in these times, when so many people are looking out after their own interests, or worse, fomenting hate and confrontation.

"But the Pope's speech was precisely to avoid such confrontation, an invitation for everyone to reflect on the importance of peace and traditional values to mankind.

"He said our faiths unite us in our belief in one God, the only God of Abraham, who is also the God of peace and of love.

Tawfik said "the ambassadors greeted the Pope's words with much applause. There was a lot of cordiality when it was time for the group photo. I think we all felt at ease coming to this meeting with His Holiness."

"For me, it was a moment of reconciliation and reflection. When I had the chance, I thanked him for having understood the importance of Averroes's thought, and I asked him to help us along the path to peace and dialog."

From Beirut, Radio Vatican got the comments of Father Samir K. Samir, professor of Islamic studies at St. Joseph University in Beirut and at the Pontifical Oriental Institute in Rome.
"The speech underscored the continuity of the Cstholic perspective on relationships with Islam, from Vatican II through the various Popee who followed, especially under John Paul II," Samir said.

"I say this because some have remarked that Benedict XVI has taken a turn on this path - by which they mean that instead of underscoring dialog, he would be more attentive to differences. But I say that the path continues.

"The second point is that Benedict XVI points to the common religious values shared by both religions, values that should be demonstrated to the modern world which is too secularized.

"The third key word today was reciprocity. This is fundamental, not in a negative way meaning if someone opposes us, then we will oppose them back - If they prohibit us from building a church, we won't allow them to build a mosque. In the CAtholic tradition, such negative reciprocity is not thinkable. We mean a positive reciprocity, an emulation of what is good.

"We Catholics want religious freedom for everyone, and together,we must all move ahead in the area of human rights. This way, reciprocity will mean building a common civilization together. Not blackmail to make the other side fear you."

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